USFL announces minor league football team in Alabama -- this time not in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The United States Football League announced today an agreement with a real estate company to build a mid-sized football stadium and commercial development for an Alabama franchise.

The USFL, which wouldn't identify specific cities, says its eight-team league will start in spring 2014 and also have locations in Southern California, Texas and Louisiana. Jaime Cuadra, USFL's president and CEO, confirmed the planned Alabama market is not Birmingham -- the site of many failed minor-league football leagues in the past, including the original USFL nearly three decades ago.

"The team we'll put in Alabama is going to be shared by one of the local colleges as well," Cuadra said. "It will definitely be a city that's a surprise. What we're doing is putting stadiums at places that will have multi-use and multi-tenants with a capacity between 20,000 and 30,000."

USFL teams will be owned jointly by the league and the real estate company, whose identity Cuadra wouldn't yet disclose. Stadiums and commercial development projects will be funded through revenue bonds in which the city has zero outlay, Cuadra said.

"It's all pretty much government-based because of the areas we're redeveloping -- areas that we'd consider economically depressed," he said. "What we're doing is bringing an economy to these particular cities. Part of the vision is if you want to put a McDonald's in, we're going to require you to partner with someone in that community."

Cuadra said there is land purchased for the development of the Alabama franchise and now it's a matter of the city in that market approving permits.

Initially, the USFL planned to play in cities with established stadiums but that apparently met obstacles. Cuadra said there were discussions with Birmingham about the development project, but the city did not show much interest.

"It's an ambitious project, but it's one this development company has proven they can do," Cuadra said. "It made a lot of sense for us as a league to be part of what they're doing. There's a lot of synergy to it."

Minor league football continues to be a business venture for some ambitious people, almost always unsuccessfully.

Most recently, the United Football League suspended play last October when players and coaches weren't getting paid. Players were to be paid $28,000 in eight installments. Former NFL coach Dennis Green, who coached the Sacramento team for three years, sued the team owner for breach of contract.

The UFL received no money in its television deal with CBS Sports Network and had to pay CBS the production costs (roughly $150,000) for each game, the Virginian-Pilot reported last fall.

"The UFL's biggest downfall was they paid too much to their coaches and they never thought hard about merchandising their teams or marketing them," Cuadra said. "They struggled to get interest in the league, and that in and of itself means the media won't pay a lot of money. We'll do a little more to market the teams and expose them to international markets as well as national markets."

The most difficult expense for minor-league football leagues tends to be liability insurance. Cuadra acknowledged that's the case and said the USFL has a good risk program in place.

"The area that's probably going to be of greatest concern is California with workers compensation," he said. "If you don't have a team in California, you lose some of the population and interest that comes with it. I think we're willing to trade off the high cost of workers comp for a state with a decent population."

Cuadra said a team in Ohio will also be included, and negotiations are continuing for other teams, with an eye toward Salt Lake City, Portland, Hartford and Rochester, N.Y.